Smart Car Brain
Samsung Electronics, which considers the smart car to be its next-generation growth engine, has joined hands with German luxury carmaker BMW to develop the “brains” of future autonomous vehicles.
With the partnership between Samsung and BMW, global companies are expected to accelerate forming partnerships to lead the future car market.
According to the Samsung Group and industry sources on Dec. 27, Samsung Electronics has recently agreed with BMW and Japanese electronics maker Panasonic Corp. to jointly develop “intelligent assistants” for smart cars. An intelligent assistant is a system that recognizes the voice of a driver and execute the driver’s voice commands, and is considered to be the brains of self-driving cars. Global IT industry watchers expect that it will evolve to a system that can help the driver make comprehensive judgments by integrating with Internet of Things (IoT) tech.
In cooperation with U.S.-based speech recognition technology firm Nuance Communications, the three companies will sharpen the relevant technology to understand the voice of the driver better. Nuance is well-known as the company that created Siri, the voice recognition service of Apple’s iPhone.
As Samsung Electronics and BMW, the leaders in the IT and auto industries, have agreed to establish a strategic partnership to develop the brains of driverless cars, smart car alliances have strengthened further. With Samsung SDI supplying batteries to BMW’s electric vehicle models, Samsung already has a close cooperative relationship with BMW.
In addition to the joint autonomous car technology development with BMW, Samsung Electronics has announced that it will supply automotive semiconductors to Audi’s next-generation self-driving cars. Earlier, the Samsung Venture Investment Corp. made investments worth billions of won in the U.S.-based connected car startup Vinli.